Asked by: Julie Hilling (Labour - Bolton West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what target has been set for time taken to process applications from UK citizens waiting to return to the UK with surrogate children from outside the EU; and how many such applications made in the last three years were processed within that time.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Entry Clearance applications are divided into settlement and non-settlement categories. The ‘settlement’ category includes applications to bring an adopted non-EU child to the UK. The service standard for processing ‘settlement’ applications is: 95 per cent within 12 weeks of the application date and 100 per cent within 24 weeks of the application date, however, there may be circumstances in complex cases where a decision will take longer.
The Home Office does not record whether the adopted child was a surrogate birth or not on the entry clearance case-working system in a way that can be used to produce statistic
Asked by: Julie Hilling (Labour - Bolton West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what average time is taken to process applications from UK citizens waiting to return to the UK with surrogate children from outside the EU.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Home Office does not hold information relating to UK citizens wishing to return to the UK with surrogate children from outside the EU. The number of Entry Clearance applications to bring adopted non-EU children to the UK over the past 3 years, along with the average time taken to process such applications is shown in the following table.
2011 | 2012 | 2013 | |
Applications processed | 113 | 88 | 60 |
Average time taken to process applications (working days) | 66.5 | 14.8 | 24.1 |
Visa endorsements for adoption and settlement. Source: HO Management Information, Performance, Reporting and Analysis Unit, 05.11.14
Asked by: Julie Hilling (Labour - Bolton West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the national fraud indicator statistics for 2013 will be published.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The last Annual Fraud Indicator was produced by the National Fraud Authority and was published on 6 June 2013. There are no plans to publish further fraud statistics in this way. When the closure of the National Fraud Authority was announced on 2 December 2013, Official Report, column 36WS, my Rt. Hon. Friend, the Home Secretary made it clear that, "while the National Fraud Authority has been successful in raising awareness of fraud and improving co-ordination, the focus should now be on cutting economic crime". The National Crime Agency is now responsible for producing the single picture of all the threats from serious and organised crime, including economic crime and fraud.
Asked by: Julie Hilling (Labour - Bolton West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of cybercrimes reported to Action Fraud have been referred to regional police forces for investigation in each year since 2009.
Answered by Karen Bradley
Action Fraud is the national reporting point for fraud, cyber-enabled financial crime and Computer Misuse Act (CMA) offences, and is operated by the City of London Police, the national lead force for fraud.Action Fraud only assumed full responsibility for recording fraud and offences under the CMA in 2013/14. The Home Office does not hold data for the breakdown of disseminations from the City of London Police to local police forces by the factors involved in the crime, such as whether it involved a cyber element. In 2013/14 City of London Police disseminated around 40,000 crimes to police forces for consideration for investigation.
Asked by: Julie Hilling (Labour - Bolton West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many successful prosecutions were made for cybercrimes reported to Action Fraud in each year since 2009.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The data requested is not available. Information on prosecutions is held by the Crown Prosecution Service and is not relayed back to Action Fraud to correlate against reports.
Asked by: Julie Hilling (Labour - Bolton West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many permanent members of staff were employed by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau in (a) 2012-13 and (b) 2013-14.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau had an establishment of 84 permanent members of staff in 2012-13, and the same number of permanent staff in 2013-14.
The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau is also complimented by officers and staff in other police forces and the National Crime Agency.